Plans to build another bioethanol plant on the east coast moved a step closer this week after North Lincolnshire council granted planning permission for a new site near Hull.

Bioethanol Limited’s plant at Immingham will cost around £170m to build and use 500,000t of UK-grown wheat when operational.

Managing director Mike Eyre told Farmers Weekly final funding was being secured and he hoped construction would start in spring 2011, with commercial operations expected to begin 18 months after that.

“We are in discussions with interested investors and equity confidence is once again returning to the biofuel sector, despite the recent wheat price spike,” he said. “We were awaiting this planning consent which was a prerequisite to closing the fund raising.”